THE NATION

THE NATION; Chrysler Fined for Safety Violations

By Martha A. Miles and Caroline Rand Herron

Published: July 12, 1987

Just as Chrysler's chairman, Lee A. Iacocca, had finished apologizing for ''dumb'' and ''unforgivable'' behavior involving disconnected odometers, he had a new, potentially more serious problem to confront. Last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined his company more than $1.5 million for 811 violations, including willfully exposing workers to lead and arsenic. (By ''willful'' the Federal agency meant that the company knew of the exposure problems but failed to correct them.) The penalty was believed to be the largest the Government has imposed for job and safety violations, although it was only a fraction of the $1.4 billion in profits Chrysler earned in 1986.

As is common in regulatory cases, Chrysler agreed to pay the fine without actually admitting guilt. A company spokesman said it would improve monitoring of poisonous substances at its plant in Newark, Del., where the agency said the violations occurred.

Last month, Chrysler and two of its executives were indicted by a Federal grand jury in St. Louis on charges of selling 60,000 cars as new after company managers had driven them with their odometers disengaged.